


die before i see you fall

by seryphsystem (Slie)



Series: castles in the sky [3]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, Is It Fluffy Enough Yet, Multi, gdi sora this is why we can't have nice things, strap on your seatbelts kids we're going for a ride on the Pain Train
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-09-26 05:49:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9870188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slie/pseuds/seryphsystem
Summary: the disney castle incident, how Sora happened, and how Sora happened to it.(multichapter prequel tocarry me home)





	1. winter sun

This is how it starts: Kairi, keyblade and magic a suggestion of light beneath the skin of her hands, hugging her boys tight and promising to come home safely.

This is how it happens: Riku and Sora breaking their back-to-back formation to go on the offensive against Xehanort, forgetting for a moment how tired they are from the fighting and the nightmares and the never sleeping monsters in the dark.

This is how it ends: Riku forcing a Dark Corridor to open in the heart of Disney Castle with his eyes wide and his heart screaming, because Sora is bleeding out and bleeding darkness in his arms.

 

-♠-♠-♠-

 

Minnie is there with her entourage, of course, because Riku has good aim even when he can’t think because this is Sora in his arms and he’s too pale and he’s bleeding he’s bleeding-

“Queen Minnie-” he manages to get out, because he knows that’s who she is, heard about her from the King (Mickey) and surely she can help Sora, can do something about this it never should have happened-

She rises, all calm and stately grace, and gestures to the animals around her.

“If you would please fetch a doctor from town,” she tells them, and after a long moment of thought adds “and prepare a room.”

Riku’s hope is draining along with Sora’s lifeblood (there’s so much there’s so _much_ of it) and Sora and Kairi made him believe in miracles but that faith is slipping now.

“I thought- Mickey said-” and oh, it was a mistake to use his name, no matter how many times he told Riku to use it the queen looks so cold so cold so cold.

“I have some skill with light,” she says, “but this is something I cannot heal.”

Can’t or won’t? he wants to scream at her but holds it in like he’s trying to hold Sora together only that isn’t working, isn’t working at all and Riku is out of ideas out of potions out of time.

He lowers his head, grits his teeth. He didn’t think he’d feel this helpless ever again.

There are footsteps.

“...please,” he says to Sora’s hair, doesn’t dare to look up from where his best friend is cradled (is dying) in his arms that are covered in red and black and dark.

The footsteps stop.

“Wandering the castle right now would cause undue alarm,” Queen Minnie says. “Please remain here until a room is prepared.”

The footsteps resume, soft and unhurried, and this time Riku says nothing but he kneels there in a cold room with blood on the white stone floor and his legs are falling asleep the boy he loves is dying and he would very much like to wake up now.

 

-♠-♠-♠-

 

It’s probably not long before the doctor arrives and Riku is ushered into an out-of-the-way room, nearly bare but for a bed and a table covered in bandages.

He’s vaguely aware of small unimportant things- the passage of seconds and minutes, the panicked noises of someone in the hall, the burn in his arms where Sora’s weight is nearly too much, the roughness of the bedsheets when a wizened paw gently forces him to put Sora down, voices around and around him all soft and cautious and running out of time. 

These are the things he will later remember: wisps of darkness seeping through his fingers where he holds the wound closed because the doctor won’t touch the element. Potions pressed into the deep parts of the wound and poured down Sora’s throat to restore blood and muscle and flesh, barely taking effect before his stomach is torn back open by shadows. Bandages, thick and white, hardly wound around his body before they’re soaked through and need to be replaced.

He’ll remember purple seeping through the cloth instead of blood, the doctor skittering around the spreading stain as though Sora was bleeding poison. The doctor with ears tucked back, wringing his paws like hands, voice too soft and distant telling Riku there is nothing to be done.

He’ll remember Queen Minnie standing in the doorway with a chill and distant sorrow, ushering out attendants and doctor and onlookers- leaving Riku holding potions and water to Sora’s lips, leaving Riku to his vigil with the blood and the dark, leaving Riku alone.

 

-♠-♠-♠-

 

“Riku,” Sora says at some point, low and anxious and thin.

Riku looks at his pale skin and shaking fingers, tsks, and holds up another potion bottle.

“Drink,” he says.

Sora whines and turns his head away, brow furrowing and hand twitching against the sheets and blankets.

“Riku, where-”

“Drink,” Riku interrupts, and shoves the bottle at his lips. From the face he’s making, if he had any more energy Sora would probably bite him.

He sips (reluctantly) for a moment before he shakes his head out of Riku’s hold, furrowing his eyebrows.

“Where?”  

“We’re at Disney Castle.”

“Is it- Riku, _go._ ”

“...”

It was too much to hope that Sora wouldn’t realize the implications of this. Riku left a battlefield, left the Heartless and Xehanort and the Dark with nothing against them.

(He weighed Sora and Kairi against the world and no matter what Mickey says the world has always lost.)

“...Worry about yourself,” he finally says, and doesn’t dare meet Sora’s eyes.

“ _Ri-_ ku…”

“Stop wiggling. I need to change the bandage again.”

“You’re moping,” Sora says.

“You’re dying,” Riku retorts, and neither of them says anything for a while after that.

 

-♠-♠-♠-

 

If only the wound would close, it would be fine.

 

If only they hadn’t gotten separated.

 

If only Sora’s blood weren’t pouring out from a hole that refused to heal.

 

If only Riku had stayed behind him where he should have been.

 

If only potions could restore enough of his too-fragile flesh and outpouring blood.

 

-♠-♠-♠-

  
_If only this had never happened._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's that? You need more angst in your diet? Sure, I'm happy to oblige.


	2. in the dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sitting with a dying person is really the same as sitting alone.

The first night is far too long and lonely, even for him.

But while seven keybladers and a king may sound like a good number against darkness, in reality they’re stretched thin against the flooding tides. It’s too dangerous not to go in pairs, but there are too many worlds for them to fight in groups as they would like to.

Everyone always has somewhere else to be and somewhere else to go to. If they’re not on a battlefield, they’re heading to one.

So while Riku misses Kairi with all his heart and longs for the companionship of the others he’s learned to trust- on this night so much darker than any of the others that he’s lived through, he is alone.

The tired and bitter part of him, the part trained by Maleficent and made stronger by the darkness Ansem forced down his throat, wonders why Riku should have expected anything else.

(Like sunset on the waves, he tries not to think- nothing gold can stay.)

 

-♠-♠-♠-

 

The storm that broke the world wasn’t the first one they’d gone out in. Sora and Riku have always been a little reckless, and where they go Kairi goes too.

So of course it would bite them in the butt.

“It’s _okay,_ ” he calls, clinging to the side of his boat, “it’s okay, we’ll be okay,”

“It’s _not!_ ” Sora says. And for now he’s right, with the ocean throwing them in every direction. But Riku was born in this place and he and Sora have the blood of the ocean’s people in their veins. They can do this.

And Kairi is with them, and they can’t let Kairi get hurt, so how could they fail?

“It’ll be okay!” Riku shouts, twisting his voice just so to let it carry through the storm. A trick passed down from fisher to fisher, for the unlucky days when a boat can’t get home fast enough.

He pulls Sora to his own boat, lets the two cling to him, rides the storm with his precious people right beside him.

“It’ll be okay,” Riku says again through gritted teeth, challenging the world to be anything but what it should be.

And it is okay, even if they get the scolding of a lifetime afterwards.

 

-♠-♠-♠-

 

Riku and Sora know how to fall properly. It’s taught to the kids on the Islands before they’re ever allowed to go off on their own, and freerunning is a legitimate sport that they’ve both always been good at. Some of the elders turn it into a philosophy thing, all spiritual and deep thinking, but most just appreciate the joy and physicality and practicality of it.

They know how to roll from some heights and crouch from others, how to use one obstacle to get past another, how to move with the world like a wave moves with the sea. Sora’s never really gotten the hang of roof-running, and Riku can’t go straight up a wall like his older cousins, but someday they’ll be able to. They’re Islanders, after all.

So falling is just… not a problem. It never has been.

It comes as a surprise to learn that Kairi hasn’t experienced the same thing.

Riku holds the crying girl in his arms, confused and distressed while Sora sobs next to him from sheer empathy and confusion and Wakka and Tidus and Selphie mill around them, nobody understanding just what is going on.

The adults finally come to help and take Kairi away with gentle arms and shuttered faces, and Riku is herded off with the kids to help with chores and cleaning and work.

“It’s okay,” his cousin says.

“No it’s not,” Riku says. Sets his feet stubbornly, like that can make the world do what he wants to. Sees the exasperation on the older boy’s face and dodges the hair-ruffle a moment later, protective hands over the silver hair that their family has passed through the generations. It gets tangled more easily than Sora’s, which fluffs every which way like it’s daring the universe to tame it.

“It’ll be okay,” his cousin says. “She’ll be fine.”

And she is, eventually.

Her father tries to keep her at home more after that, but Kairi comes to him and Sora a few weeks later and shyly asks if they’ll teach her how to fall.

She doesn’t have the same easy confidence an Islander would, always hesitates and moves a little more cautiously than anyone else, but she’s good enough and isn’t hurt from falling ever again.  

 

-♠-♠-♠-

 

When they were little, when they were still racing and outpacing each other and Kairi on the beaches of the play island, Sora broke his arm.

Riku didn’t know at first. Heard the _crack,_ sharp as breaking rock or a tree falling, and thought maybe one of the decks had broken. Then Sora screamed.

The next few minutes were a blur of shouting, of chasing the others off until they went to get help, of easing Sora out of where he’d curled around his arm in a ball of confusion and pain and of patting the tears off his cheeks with sandy, messy hands.

“It’s okay,” he said, again and again, “it’s okay, it’s okay-”

“It’s not,” Sora sobbed. “It’s not, it’s not-”

“It will be,” Riku said, and it was.

 

-♠-♠-♠-

 

After the fight with Xemnas and the heart-stopping moment when Riku fell, they have a lot of time to talk.

A lot.

Like a _lot,_ a lot. The Realm of Nothing and the Realm of Dark take forever to walk through.

Sora just wishes his friend would hold up his side of a conversation.

“C’ _mon_ , Riku, it’s okay! We just gotta keep walkin’.” Step, hoist Riku up a little more, get his fingers through the taller boy’s belt a little more securely-

“It’s really not,” Riku says. Does his best to step with Sora, and refuses to elaborate.

It’s kind of hard to make faces at Riku when the guy is _this_ close to passing out on his shoulder, but Sora is talented and can definitely do it.

“It totally is,” he argues with the same voice he’d used for _let’s name the raft Excalibur._ Riku’s talking! So maybe Sora can get him going and distract-

“It’s not,” Riku intones, with all the dour seriousness of _you are not allowed to have fun_ _here_. Oof. Sora didn’t see much of that DiZ guy, but he doesn’t think they were a great influence. Riku was kinda serious already, he didn’t need to get MORE serious.

(Besides, what kind of guy used magic to make his skin darker? That was just weird.)

Anyway. Riku, here, now. Being a butt.

“You’re just being pessimistic,” he says. “It’ll be okay, you’ll see!” Riku’s opening his mouth to protest, so Sora cheerfully steamrolls right over him. “Besides, we’re together!”

That softens him up. Point to Sora!

Everything will be okay. He’s sure of it.

 

-♠-♠-♠-

 

The room they’re in only has one small window, but it’s enough for Riku to tell they’re heading for dawn. Good.

Whatever has to happen, at least it’ll happen in the light.

He finishes tying off another set of bandages. No need to tie them too securely, when they’ll be replaced soon enough- but they need to stay on for at least a little while.

Sora’s pulse is as good as it’ll get, right now, but he’ll need another potion soon. And-

There’s a knock on the door.

“It’s not locked,” Riku says. “Come in.”

Maybe his voice could be a little bit nicer and a little less snappy. Maybe.

But he’s tired, still wounded and aching from the fight and drained from spending every drop of MP that he has on the dying boy before him. The boy who is his best friend. The boy he could lose here, now, when they’d finally been together again.

Riku thinks maybe the world can just deal with a little bit of snappiness.

The door opens. He doesn’t bother to look, busy checking the dwindling stash of potions and separating out the next stack of bandages for when they’re needed.

“ _Oh-”_

He knows that voice, it’s-

Kairi slams into Riku’s back, arms locking tight around him, and cries. Riku cries with her, the floodgates finally loosening.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he chokes out, turning to bury his face in her hair, turning away from the darkness and the blood. She pulls back just enough to give him a watery smile.

"It's okay," she says. "Sora-"

"It's  _not_ ," Riku cuts her off, and curls into her again. 

Kairi runs her fingers through his hair. Her broken, beautiful boys. 

"Tell me," she says softly, and Riku weeps.

 

-♠-♠-♠-

 

He can hear them talking. Riku’s voice, all tired and rough, and Kairi’s lighter tones all strained from tears. He can hear them. He should get up, he should-

But Sora is so tired. His eyes are so heavy and he hurts so much and even Roxas can’t say anything because he’s too busy trying to hold their heart together. The wound may be to his stomach, but the darkness tears at their heart.

The voices trail off for a moment. Then there’s a gentle kiss on his forehead, and hair softer than his own brushes his cheeks.

“You’ve been here all night,” Kairi says. “Get _going._ ”

Cool fingers trail gently over Sora's face. It feels nice.

“But-”

“You said it’s still a while before he needs another potion. So use that time and get some food and water, you silly boy.” Fondness and stern command. Sora wonders how she does it.

“He’s _dying_ , Kairi!”

“Then don’t die with him!” The fingers on his cheek _burn_ before someone snatches them back. It must be Kairi’s hands, Kairi trying not to lose control of her magic. “I won’t lose you both. _Go._ And I will get more potions and bandages.”

Riku goes. No one can refuse Kairi like that.

After a moment later, Kairi goes too.

_...Dying, huh?_

It’s not like Sora hasn’t been close before. It’s weird to think about.

But his life isn’t just him. Not anymore.

He reaches inside, as far as he can go.

 _Roxas._  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Sora's point of view is really fun.


	3. if you are near

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> all is not lost.

“Are you sure about this?”

“No way. But… I think we’re out of options.”

“And time. They’ll be back any second.”

“...they’re gonna be so pissed. Tell’em sorry for me, okay?”

“I will. Hey, Sora?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. And- I’m sorry.”

(Sora smiles at that, grins bright and sweet against the glass and the dark. Roxas tries to memorize the shape of it.)

“Let’s do this.”

 

-♠-♠-♠-

 

For Roxas, being reborn feels a lot like falling.

For Sora, it feels like falling apart.

 

-♠-♠-♠-

 

the room is grey with dawn and there are bandages with _poison-dark-hate_ and _rust-red-blood_ on them that are not interesting and make him uncomfortable to look at

there is _nothing-roxas-light_ and _glass-doll-memory_ - _light_ here with him and that doesn’t interest him they aren’t really his even though they taste smell feel like him they aren’t his the way _riku-love-dark_ and _kairi-love-light_ are his so they are unimportant for now even with their mouths moving and sound-words-sound coming out

he slides lets the dark move him move with him like ink in water there is shadow _here_ and light _there-there-there_ and he can flow down through the corner-shadows and the line of the hallway like a boat with the full force of the river and the wind

and he knows that he knows this like he knows _riku-darkshadowlight-mine_ and _kairi-princess-sunlight-mine_ like he knows _cold-stone-white-white-white_ are the wards and the hearts of this place and they burn like ice on skin like he knows _home-sand-sun_ wouldn’t burn if he could go home again

and they are here talking with voice-words soft soft soft which is silly he can see their hearts bright bright tied together so strong and beautiful and his and who needs words when you can whisper along those

so he reaches out only they shiver like _string-twang-sound_ and _riku-love_ whirls with _fear-panic-protect_ and that’s wrong wrong wrong _riku-love-strong_ should never be afraid

he pulls back hides hides hears soft voice words from _kairi-strong-love_ and slowly slowly they calm but _riku-love-shadow_ is still afraid so scared so scared so scared and moves runs away towards _nothing-roxas-light_ and _glass-crystal-light_ even though he didn’t see anything

and sora loves riku loves kairi so he follows him follows her follows them in the dark and his chest feels like _hollow-tears-salt_ and _sad-ocean-loss_ and that is not very nice not nice at all

 

-♠-♠-♠-

 

Riku slams the door and slams into the room with all the force of an avalanche. Or a tsunami. Or one of Lexaeus’ punches, back when Roxas was still learning his Limit Break and how to shape magic and light.

(It’s giving him a headache, he can remember Twilight Town and growing up with Hayner and Pence and Olette, he can remember Namine but at the same time he knows Xion and Axel and over 300 days of missions and learning and wearing the Organization’s coat.

And Xion’s _here,_ she’s here and how could he forget her? How could anyone?)

And Roxas knew he’d have to face a pissed off Keyblade Master and Princess after the split, but he was hoping to at least get a chance to _think._

He keeps half an eye on Xion, who looks just as disoriented as he is from where she’s sprawled against the opposite wall. If she decides to run, he can at least go with her.

...Or he would if he could stand up. Great. 

“How could you let him-” Riku’s yelling, knuckles white around his keyblade. Roxas sighs.

“No one _lets_ Sora do anything.”

And that makes Riku pull back, eyes bright and wet with tears. Kairi is pale behind him, trying to hold him from attacking the Nobodies in the room.

Right now Roxas is very grateful that Kairi is stronger than she looks. He might get stabbed for this next bit, otherwise.

“He said- to tell you sorry. After.”

Riku sinks to his knees at that, keyblade clattering against the floor before it fades away. Maybe Roxas needs to work on predicting people. He’s clearly a little out of practice.

...There’ll be more time for that, now.

His head feels so empty. It’s not as nice as he thought it would be.

 

-♠-♠-♠-

 

Riku has failed.

He failed Sora, couldn’t save him, Sora is _gone_ and everything he’s ever done has been for naught.

 _Foolish boy,_ a memory of darkness laughs and laughs and laughs, _you know nothing of the light is yours to keep._

There are hands on his arm and there’s stone against his knees but all Riku knows is the laughter and the loss and the dark that feels cold and floods the whole inside of him.

( _What is it that you’re so afraid of?_ Roxas had asked in the dream-not-a-dream.

 _Losing something important,_ he wanted to say. _Causing someone to be hurt,_ he said, and he knows that this is both.)

Losing Sora to memory and losing Sora to sleep and now losing Sora to darkness, and all because Riku couldn’t protect him- he knows the saying.

_Once is an incident, twice is coincidence, but three times is a pattern._

And Sora is lost-

 

-♠-♠-♠-

 

 _riku-love_ is sad sad sad and the mouth noise sound is very loud and then very quiet and _roxas-light-clear_ is wary determined worry and _crystal-shell-light_ is confused and scared and _kairi-princess-lovelovelove_ is wavering bright bright bright like a candle in the windy dark-

and dark is in _riku-shadow-love_ but it’s the wrong kind it’s not right at all and sora is dark too so he knows what darks are good and safe and what will hurt him like poison if he swims in it

so he pulls on the dark gently gently and lets it wisp off his arms safe useless spent and it means he’s visible but the dark isn’t hurting riku and that is good enough even if he smells feels fear fear fear around him that isn’t the same as hurting something that is his that is important

he shivers presses hands claws flat flat against the floor showing here he’s here he won’t fight he’s here

lets the bad-poison-darkness bleed into the air from his hands wrists feet so it won’t hurt them so they can see he is helping he helps he’s here he’s here

“...Sora?”

that name is him is him so he pulls at _heart-bonds-light_ and lets them thrum with _love-love-love_ and _here_ and _sora-me-me-me_

only now _kairi-love-love_ has hands over her mouth and _horror-hope-fear_ and riku is the same not moving not moving and _roxas-nothing-light_ is beckoning him over with _here-come-here_ intent and words and sora goes because _roxas-light-light_ is not afraid of him

he makes himself small small small not a threat not attack no threat and then there is a hand in sora’s hair and it’s not kairi or riku but the touch is soft careful and feels of _important-partner-love_ so he likes it and hopes _kairi-princess-light_ and _riku-strong-love_ might do it later if they’re not afraid

 _kairi-strong-light_ is reaching out with _burn-light-change_ around her hands so sora hides until it fades away because kairi is good and will be sad if she hurts him

but she is next to _riku-strong-love_ now so he goes to them curls between them both and tells them _home-home-home_ and _love-love-love_ andhe kneads shadows between his fingers because that is good too

 _princess-love-mine_ he tells kairi and _strong-shadow-love_ he tells riku and presses against shoulder side shoulder until the fear turns into love caution hope

kairi is kissing his forehead and there is _salt-wet-tears_ on riku’s cheeks so he rubs that off tells them _important-love-here_ and _belong-here-with_ because his loves can forget important things so sora has to remind them

and he has all he needs in the world and he is here and all is well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is why nobody should leave Sora by himself. He gets Ideas.
> 
> (This isn't the end of things, either. Cue evil laughter...)


End file.
